Topband: My beverage only hears static?

[Ed Sawyer]

I think the first question is - whats you steady noise level with your TX
antenna?  Maybe S5 is a 30db improvement.  If not, in my experience - steady
state noise is either a local point source close to the antenna (is there
anything along the path or within a few hundred feet of the end?  Houses,
light poles, etc?)  The other is bad coax system picking up coupled noise.
The easiest way to get to the bottom of that is to use a radio that can be
brought right to the beverage feed (off the transformer).  Whats the actual
SWR at that point with a known good coax jumper?  Then whats the noise with
a radio at that point? Vs in the shack?  Also, what is the noise floor
during the day vs the night?

 

Let us know the results of these.

 

Here my beverages (with preamp off) have S1 noise on 160 typically vs S6-7
on the TX verticals on a typical evening.

 

Ed  N1UR